I sat at my desk looking out over Horse Cove to the spring greening of the Fodderstacks when I noticed the distinct patterning of the dying cone shaped hemlocks. I was stunned at how many trees were dotting the landscape as far as I could see. Last year the hemlocks were still gallantly trying to put out new needles, and the Winter hid their fate among the other leaf bare trees, but this Spring the harsh reality of their demise could not be denied.

Later in the day, as the sky became brilliantly golden in the setting sun and the shadows turned shapes into shades of the Blue Ridge blues, I saw a lone hawk soaring over the cove and the Fodderstacks as if to bestow a blessing and I knew what I had to do. If I were a composer I would have written a requiem, but I am a painter and I wanted to say to the hemlock, "Thank you for your majestic being and you will not be forgotten."

When I finished the painting I listened again to the words of a song by Leonard Cohen called Nightingale, that mystic bird in tales from the East. His poem about the bird seemed to sum up what I was trying to say about the hemlock: